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Suruswadee Jaimsuwan

Counsel

Biography

Suruswadee Jaimsuwan is a senior litigator in the firm’s dispute resolution group, advising clients in both criminal and civil cases. As a former judge with the Thai Courts of Justice, Suruswadee uses her unique insight to identify creative ways to help clients achieve their goals. Owing to her legal expertise, she is recognized as a “Future Star” for litigation in Thailand by Benchmark Litigation (2024-).

Suruswadee has extensive legal experience on and off the bench, bolstered by a deep knowledge of Thai law and court procedure. She uses her expertise to develop strong and practical legal strategies, and to provide flawless advocacy in the courtroom. She presents facts and evidence to the courts and regulators clearly and persuasively, for the benefit of her clients. Moreover, as a mediation expert, she has a superb ability to explore alternative dispute resolution options and identify areas of agreement to seek solutions. Suruswadee works closely with the firm’s litigators to share her insights on potential solutions, negotiation techniques, and Thai court practice and procedure, thus giving our clients a competitive edge.

In addition to her judicial career, Suruswadee worked for Thailand’s Department of Labour Protection and Welfare under a scholarship from the Office of the Civil Service Commission. In that position, she worked closely with various governmental authorities on labor law research and development. This opportunity provided her with an outstanding comprehension of the practical workings of labor law.

A trusted and respected legal advisor and attorney, Suruswadee is regularly invited to present her insights on a wide range of legal issues in Thailand, including those related to employment law, arbitration, class actions, white-collar crime, and administrative proceedings. She has also been entrusted by local legislators to contribute to the formation of new laws and regulations, including Thailand’s recent Civil Partnership Bill.

Suruswadee received her legal education in Thailand, the United Kingdom, and Australia. She also received litigation, mediation, legislative development, and judicial training from the Straus Institute for Dispute Resolution at Pepperdine University, the Centre for Asia-Pacific Initiatives at the University of Victoria, and the International Training Centre of the International Labour Organization.

Suruswadee is a barrister-at-law qualified by the Thai Bar Association, a notary public, an arbitrator on the rosters of both the Thai Arbitration Institute and Thailand Arbitration Center, an active member of the Thailand Board of Trade, and a leader of the AMCHAM Women Committee. She is also known as an advocate on criminal justice, mediation, and vocational guidance for legal practitioners.

Experience

  • Successfully defended a leading multinational electronics company against criminal charges alleging breach of agreements relating to employment conditions, collective bargaining agreements, and an award by assisting client’s on legal advice, developing case strategy and representing client in court with the result that the court did not allow any of the plaintiff’s complaints to proceed further.
  • Defended a high-profile case in the Supreme Court Criminal Case Division for Persons Holding Political Positions and secured a historical best outcome for cases involved allegations of similar offenses, including by developing case strategy and representing the client in court.
  • Defended a multinational electronics company against false claims in connection with a subcontractor that failed to deliver work as agreed in upon in a construction agreement.
  • Advised on case strategy in relation to an ongoing contagious estate division dispute involving heirs in multiple jurisdictions in Southeast Asia.
  • Advised high-profile individuals on prenuptial agreements, family constitutions, and wills to prevent issues among future heirs.
  • Advised various multinational companies on draft agreements containing multitier dispute resolution clause concerning negotiation, mediation, and arbitration.
  • Advised a multinational company on its online multilevel marketing business in relation to various legal concerns including potential criminal liabilities.
  • Defended directors and employees against criminal charges in relation to forgery and false documents by proposing and executing legal strategy, advising clients at inquiry meetings with related authorities, and getting warrants revoked in an ongoing investigation process.
  • Prosecuted and defended numerous highly contentious divorce cases, bringing a satisfactory conclusion to each by strategically negotiating favorable settlement based on legal issues overlooked by the counterparty.
  • Represented a client at the appeal stage of a high-profile divorce case and advised the client’s overseas legal team in relation to Thai law and practice, assisted in negotiating terms of the agreement, and succeeded in concluding amicable agreements in both Thailand and the overseas jurisdiction, and ensured a smooth and efficient process involving the Thai courts and the transition to implementing the agreement in Thailand.
  • Represented a multinational cosmetics company in the witness examination process and succeeded in enforcing a noncompete agreement and securing damages for a breach of the agreement.
  • Represented over 10 international insurance companies in multibillion-baht claims regarding product liability and wrongful acts, and won challenges on choice of court with jurisdiction over the case.
  • Advised on drafting a petition to the Criminal Court for Corruption and Misconduct Cases to request that the matter be considered by the Constitutional Court; the court granted the request without delay.
  • Helped a multinational transportation company with negotiation strategy for a lease agreement as an alternate resolution to costly litigation.
  • Advised regional office of global insurance company on dismissal of employees resulting from the company’s structural changes.
  • Advised a leading multinational company on devising and executing disciplinary procedures and litigation strategy in a case potentially involving internal organized fraud and labor disputes, successfully preventing directors from facing potential criminal liabilities.
  • Advised on case strategy to have a criminal case filed by a juristic committee against our client withdrawn before further inquiry by the court. Besides securing withdrawal of the case, our advice kept the client from having to go through bail and court proceedings as the strategy was implemented.
  • Advised on weight of evidence in relation to expert witness and how to counter unfavorable expert witness opinion in a criminal forgery case.
  • Assisted a British client who was transferred to serve time in his home country by liaising with the Criminal Court, the Department of Corrections, and the British embassy in relation to a Thai court order for abatement and release under previously issued royal pardons.
  • Led an extensive research project into relevant portions of Thai criminal law as part of an international organization’s initiative concerning international and domestic legal instruments related to human trafficking, forced labor, and modern slavery. The research also involved exploring legislation on immigration, migrant workers, and labor law in order to identify potential areas for improvement and possible solutions for impacted parties.
  • Worked with the firm’s litigators to provide strategic advice to clients on a broad range of civil and criminal cases, including labor disputes, fraud and white-collar crime, corruption and misconduct offenses, commercial disputes, bankruptcy proceedings, and family disputes.
  • Presided in various courts over a numerous criminal and civil cases, demonstrating a level of professionalism that led both plaintiffs and defendants to have confidence in the judicial system.
  • Worked as part of the legal development teams of the Department of Labour Protection and Welfare on drafting the Maritime Labour Act and on amending the Labour Protection Act and Labour Relations Act, relying on her knowledge of international labor law to provide recommendations and becoming known as an enthusiastic proponent of safe and healthy working conditions.
ABOUT Suruswadee

Practices

Compliance and Investigations

Dispute Resolution and Litigation

Employment

Location

Languages

    Thai

    English

Education

    LLM, Monash University

    LLM, King’s College London

    LLB, Thammasat University

Insights

October 2, 2024
As Thailand is a contracting state of the UN Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards, international arbitral awards can, in principle, be enforced in Thailand. However, not all awards will necessarily be enforceable. The Arbitration Act BE 2545 (2002) gives courts the discretion to deny the enforcement of an award if the court determines that enforcing it would be contrary to “public order or the good morals of the people” (often referred to as “public policy”). Similarly, the Arbitration Act allows a court to set aside a domestic award if its recognition would violate public policy. This discretionary power of the court is prescribed by the law and does not require any party to make an argument on public policy grounds to trigger such power. A recent Supreme Court judgment demonstrates that a court considering an award will review the legality of the arbitral proceedings as well as the content of the award. In this case, the Supreme Court set aside an award on the grounds that it violated public policy because it was the result of arbitration that did not proceed in accordance with the relevant law. Under Thai bankruptcy law, after the Bankruptcy Court accepts a request for rehabilitation of a debtor, all civil proceedings against that debtor, including arbitration proceedings, must be stayed until the court orders otherwise or until the rehabilitation case ceases. In this matter before the Supreme Court, however, the arbitrator continued with the arbitration and went on to render an award even after the court had accepted the request for rehabilitation. The award was later challenged to be set aside on the grounds that continuing with the arbitration was against public policy. While setting aside the award was arguably unnecessary, in this case (as the relevant bankruptcy law
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May 28, 2024
Under Thai law, namely the Criminal Procedural Code, an injured person may bring a criminal case to a criminal court without having a public prosecutor file the case for him or her. After the court conducts an inquiry into the case, the court considers whether to accept the case for further trial and determine whether the defendant should be penalized accordingly. Private parties involved in certain types of cases, such as labor disputes or shareholder disputes, may find this a common channel to pursue. Criminal law in Thailand recently underwent a significant change, as new legislation changed numerous criminal offenses to become phinai-fine offenses instead. However, as this is a relatively new development, there are still instances in which plaints involving phinai fines are still being submitted to the court by these private injured persons as criminal cases. But this raises the issue of whether the court can proceed with such cases. For over a year, Thailand has enforced the Act on Phinai Fine Proceedings B.E. 2565 (2022) (ACFP) as a new legal measure to decriminalize certain types of fines for criminal penalties with less-serious offenses to phinai offenses, which results in phinai-related offenders having to pay only fines instead of facing the entire criminal procedures and penalties under the Thai Penal Code and Criminal Procedure Code, including bail submission, travel restrictions, imprisonment, and a criminal record. What happens to ongoing trials in court for phinai offenses? The ACFP automatically changed criminal offenses under 204 pieces of legislation, including certain offenses under the Bankruptcy Act B.E. 2483 (1940), the Determining Offenses Relating to Registered Partnership, Limited Partnership, Limited Company, Association, and Foundation Act B.E. 2499 (1956), the Labor Relations Act B.E. 2518 (1975), the Consumer Protection Act B.E. 2522 (1979), the Public Limited Companies Act B.E. 2535 (1992), and
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May 2, 2024
The Thai Arbitration Institute (TAI) announced on April 19, 2024, that it has jointly set up an in-court arbitration pilot project with five courts in Thailand—namely, the Civil Court, Taling Chan Civil Court, Central Intellectual Property and International Trade Court, Samut Prakan Provincial Court, and Samut Prakan Khwaeng Court. The pilot project launched on May 1, 2024. Pilot Project This project is designed to encourage the parties in cases submitted to these courts to consider having parts of the case, or even the entire case, heard and determined by arbitrators under the Civil Procedural Code (CPC). The objective of the project is to provide faster and more efficient judicial services to the public by reducing the number of cases to be fully tried in the courts through providing an option for parties to engage in in-court arbitration. Still, the court remains largely involved in the process, as the court will consider the award in detail before determining whether to render a judgment in accordance with the award without any edits. Therefore, in-court arbitration favors parties who prefer to have a court judgment instead of an out-of-court arbitral award, which could lead to enforcement challenges under the Arbitration Act. Parties who participate in this pilot project will pay the TAI a fee for its administrative assistance and related services. The TAI will assist in setting up and facilitating meetings, witness hearings, and the necessary logistics pertaining to case files involving the arbitrators, the parties, and the court. After the arbitrators hear the case, the case files, including the witness statements, exhibits, and reports during the arbitration proceedings, are collected and sent back to the respective court along with the award. Under the pilot project, the arbitrators will issue awards within 30 days of the last day of the trial or
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April 18, 2024
In-court arbitration is an alternative dispute resolution (ADR) tool provided in the Civil Procedure Code (CPC) for cases that have already been submitted to the court. Historically, in-court arbitration has not been a popular method of resolving disputes. Instead, out-of-court arbitration, as prescribed by the Thai Arbitration Act B.E. 2545 (2002), is far more utilized in practice. The popularity of out-of-court arbitration is demonstrated by the fact that presentations on arbitration in Thailand almost exclusively focus on out-of-court arbitration; in-court arbitration is rarely even a topic of discussion. This situation is partly because in-court arbitration has not been encouraged by the courts in the past. Further, it is also not common for parties to agree on arbitration clauses after a dispute arises and also after it has been submitted to the court. Instead, arbitration clauses are generally discussed and crafted during the negotiation of the contract, which will most likely provide that any dispute arising out of the contract is to be resolved by out-of-court arbitration. Nonetheless, the Thai Courts of Justice have recently started to support this in-court ADR tool as a viable option and to encourage parties to agree in-court arbitration clauses before proceeding with a case through trial. This article is not meant to assess whether in-court arbitration is preferable to either out-of-court arbitration or to having the case heard by professional judges of the Courts of Justice. Instead, the purpose of this article is to discuss certain key provisions of the CPC that parties should carefully consider before agreeing to an in-court arbitration clause. On this point, the CPC specifically states that out-of-court arbitration is prescribed by arbitration law, the Arbitration Act, which is an entirely separate piece of legislation drafted specifically to apply to out-of-court arbitration. In contrast, in-court arbitration is completely regulated by
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Awards & Rankings

September 13, 2024
The 2024 edition of the IFLR1000 Asia-Pacific rankings, released by International Financial Law Review (IFLR), highlights Tilleke & Gibbins’ continued excellence in financial and corporate transactional work. The firm has retained its strong rankings across multiple jurisdictions and practice areas, reaffirming its position as a leading firm in the Asia-Pacific region. This year, Tilleke & Gibbins received firmwide rankings in key jurisdictions, including: Thailand Banking & Finance – Tier 3 Capital Markets: Debt – Tier 3 Capital Markets: Equity – Tier 3 M&A – Tier 2 Project Development – Tier 2 Restructuring & Insolvency – Tier 3 Vietnam Banking & Finance – Other Notable M&A – Tier 3 Project Development – Tier 3 Cambodia Financial & Corporate – Tier 2 Project Development – Tier 2 Laos Financial & Corporate – Tier 2 In addition to these firmwide rankings, Tilleke & Gibbins had several standout individual recognitions, with 10 lawyers honored in the 2024 individual rankings, including new entries for John Frangos, Niti Muangkote, Santhapat Periera, and Tram Ngoc Bich Nguyen. The full list is as follows: Charunun Sathitsuksomboon – Highly Regarded, M&A, Thailand Charuwan Charoonchitsathian – Rising Star, M&A, Thailand David Mol – Rising Star, Corporate and M&A, Cambodia Jay Cohen – Highly Regarded, Banking, Cambodia John Frangos – Notable Practitioner, Restructuring & Insolvency, Thailand (new ranking) Niti Muangkote – Rising Star, Financial & Corporate, Laos; Highly Regarded, Banking & Finance, Thailand (new ranking) Saithong Rattana – Notable Practitioner, Project Development and M&A, Laos Santhapat Periera – Highly Regarded, Banking, M&A, Laos; Highly Regarded, Banking & Finance, Thailand (new ranking) Supasit Boonsanong – Highly Regarded, Project Development, Thailand Tram Ngoc Bich Nguyen – Highly Regarded, M&A, Vietnam (new ranking) To see the full set of IFLR1000 rankings for Tilleke & Gibbins’ jurisdictions, please see the Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, and
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September 12, 2024
Tilleke & Gibbins has once again secured impressive rankings in the recently released Asialaw 2024 rankings. The firm has maintained its position as a top legal service provider across multiple jurisdictions, earning a total of 39 rankings in practice and industry groups, 19 of which are in the highest tiers. The firm’s performance continues to reflect its exceptional client service and legal expertise across Southeast Asia. Tilleke & Gibbins is recognized in all available categories for Cambodia, Laos, and Thailand, demonstrating the firm’s strong presence across the region. In the individual rankings, 22 of the firm’s practitioners have been recognized, including three notable promotions and three new entries: Charunun Sathitsuksomboon (Thailand), newly ranked as a Notable Practitioner for Corporate and M&A. Linh Thi Mai Nguyen (Vietnam), promoted to Distinguished Practitioner for Intellectual Property. Loc Xuan Le (Vietnam), promoted to Elite Practitioner for Intellectual Property. Niti Muangkote (Laos), a new entry as a Rising Star for Banking and Finance. Prisna Sungwanna (Laos), newly ranked as a Distinguished Practitioner for Corporate and M&A and Banking & Finance. Suebsiri Taweepon (Thailand), promoted to Distinguished Practitioner for Intellectual Property and Technology and Telecommunications. Client feedback remains a key component of the Asialaw rankings, with Tilleke & Gibbins earning high praise for its responsiveness and commercial awareness. The firm’s sector-specific knowledge also continues to stand out, with clients expressing their appreciation of the firm’s understanding of their businesses’ operational contexts. For more details and to browse the full rankings, please visit the Asialaw website.
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July 19, 2024
Tilleke & Gibbins has been shortlisted for six awards at the Asialaw Awards 2024. The nominations highlight the firm’s outstanding performance and leadership in Southeast Asia’s legal landscape. The firm has received the following nominations: Regional Corporate/M&A Firm of the Year Cambodia Firm of the Year Laos Firm of the Year Thailand Firm of the Year In addition to the firm nominations, two individuals from Tilleke & Gibbins have been recognized for their exceptional contributions: Prisna Sungwanna – Laos Female Lawyer of the Year Charunun Sathitsuksomboon – Thailand Female Lawyer of the Year The Asialaw Awards celebrate the leading law firms and legal professionals across the region, recognizing excellence in practice and service. The winners will be announced at a ceremony in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, on September 26. For more information on the Asialaw Awards 2024 and to browse a full list of the winners, please visit the Asialaw website.
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May 10, 2024
Benchmark Litigation has unveiled its highly anticipated 2024 rankings for the top dispute resolution firms in the Asia-Pacific region, showcasing Tilleke & Gibbins’ continued success in both Thailand and Vietnam. The Benchmark Litigation rankings include two jurisdictions where Tilleke & Gibbins is active—Thailand and Vietnam. Full details of the firm’s rankings are below: Thailand Intellectual Property – Tier 1 Commercial & Transactions – Tier 2 Government & Regulatory – Tier 2 Labor & Employment – Tier 2 Trade & Customs – Tier 2 Vietnam Intellectual Property (Foreign Firms) – Tier 1 Labor & Employment (Foreign Firms) – Recommended (top tier in this category) Commercial & Transactions (Foreign Firms) – Tier 2 Energy & Construction (Foreign Firms) – Tier 2 International Arbitration – Highly Recommended (second-highest tier in this category) In the rankings of individual practitioners, a total of ten Tilleke & Gibbins lawyers were singled out for recognition: Alongkorn Tongmee – Trade & Customs Chusert Supasitthumrong – Labor & Employment Linh Duy Mai Noppramart Thammateeradaycho – Shipping Nuttaphol Arammuang – Intellectual Property Suebsiri Taweepon – Intellectual Property Suruswadee Jaimsuwan Thawat Damsa-ard – Commercial and transactions Tiziana Sucharitkul – Commercial and Transactions, Government and Regulatory K. Loc – Intellectual Property Benchmark Litigation provides coverage of litigation and disputes markets around the world, based on interviews with dispute resolution specialists and clients, as well as analysis of the market’s most important cases and firm developments. To learn more about the rankings and to browse the results, please visit the Benchmark Litigation website.
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